In the third and fourth paragraphs of The Jungle, Lewis focuses on the bride Ona Lukoszaite, an innocent young Lithuanian woman who has just turned 16. Lewis describes her joy at being married, calling it the "supreme hour of ecstasy in the life of one of God's gentlest creatures." He takes some time to describe Ona in her white muslin wedding dress and "stiff little veil." She wears new white cotton gloves and has exactly...
In the third and fourth paragraphs of The Jungle, Lewis focuses on the bride Ona Lukoszaite, an innocent young Lithuanian woman who has just turned 16. Lewis describes her joy at being married, calling it the "supreme hour of ecstasy in the life of one of God's gentlest creatures." He takes some time to describe Ona in her white muslin wedding dress and "stiff little veil." She wears new white cotton gloves and has exactly five pink paper roses "twisted" into her veil and eleven green rose leaves. She twists her hands together from nervousness. Lewis paints a detailed picture of her to humanize her for the reader so that she is not simply a faceless immigrant.
The purity of little Ona and her white wedding clothes contrast with the locale of her wedding reception, the back room of a saloon behind the stockyards where livestock is slaughtered in filthy conditions. While immigrants like Ona and her new husband and their families are brutally exploited in a number of ways by American society, Lewis wants us to know from the very start of the novel that they are people like us full of hopes, joys and a desire for a better life, no matter how poor and foreign they might be.
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